I Am Become Rahm — Destroyer of Bipartisanship

"We won the election, we wrote the bill," said Pelosi as many times as she could to an open microphone. But what was happening away from the microphone made it even easier for the Republicans to hold together. All they had to do was bring up Rahm Emanuel.

“Rahm hates us and lets us know it, and we hate him back,” said a senior Republican.

Really? Get out of here. Rahm wasn’t interested in working with Republicans? Who could have predicted…

It’s a real knee-slapper. Rahm and 85 votes? You’ve got to be kidding. It will be an instant sign that all the bipartisan talk is just that — talk — and signal that Obama intends to work solely within the Democratic caucus to achieve his objectives. The Republicans would be welcome to tag along if they like….Rahm doesn’t do "bipartisan."

I wrote the other day that "Rahm doesn’t do bipartisan," and Scarborough resoundingly echoed that sentiment. He said that appointing Rahm as COS would be like Bush appointing Tom Delay. He’s basically telling the Republicans to go Cheney themselves.

I subsequently got into an email exchange with someone who argued that Rahm was was very much a bipartisan operator, who orchestrated the caucus to capitulate to bipartisanship bullshit from 2006-2008.

Jane Hamsher

Jane is the founder of Firedoglake.com. Her work has also appeared on the Huffington Post, Alternet and The American Prospect. She’s the author of the best selling book Killer Instinct and has produced such films Natural Born Killers and Permanent Midnight. She lives in Washington DC.Subscribe in a reader